The Man Who Traveled in Elephants
by Brandon
Summary: Scully tries to sort out her feelings in the aftermath of her flashback in Ghosts.


TITLE: The Man Who Traveled in Elephants (1/2) 

AUTHOR: Brandon D. Ray 

EMAIL ADDRESS: publius@avalon.net 

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Anywhere and everywhere, so long as my name stays on it and no money changes hands. 

FEEDBACK: Oh, hell yes.... 

Ephemeral: *FEEDBACK*publius@avalon.net 

SPOILER WARNING: Avatar 

RATING: PG; a few bad words. 

CONTENT WARNING: There is a **rape** in Scully's past, which is part of the background for this story, but the references are not explicit. 

CLASSIFICATION: SRHA, a suggestion of MSR in the future; Scully/Skinner friendship 

SUMMARY: Skinner tries to help Scully deal with her feelings in the aftermath of her flashback. Sequel to "Ghosts". It is not absolutely necessary to read that one first, but it probably helps establish the circumstances behind this story. However, "Ghosts" is a much darker story than this one. 

Both stories are available on my website: http://www.avalon.net/~publius/MyStories.html 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The title of this story is a tribute to Robert A. Heinlein's short story of the same name. It's really a wonderful, touching story, and you ought to read it, but THIS story is NOT a crossover, and there is no need to have read RAH's work in order to understand this one. 

Also: I still haven't got a handle on what's going on with Season 6. (That doesn't mean I necessarily don't like it; I just haven't got my emotional bearings on it yet.) So let's assume that this takes place sometime towards the end of Season 5 -- but definitely BEFORE "The End". 

DISCLAIMER: Nope, I do not own these characters or situations. If I were THAT smart, I would be rich.   


The Man Who Traveled in Elephants 

by Brandon D. Ray 

Walter Skinner pushed his way through the noontime crowd to the back of the small diner. Located only a few blocks from the Hoover Building, this was a favorite FBI hangout, and he saw half a dozen people whom he knew from work, but none of them were the woman he was looking for. Finally, in the last booth, he found her. 

"Agent Scully," he said easily, sliding into the seat across from her. "Sorry to be late. I got tied up with a phone call at the last minute." 

She looked up at him and gave a small, unsteady smile. "That's okay. I haven't been waiting long." 

Before Skinner could respond, a waitress appeared at the table to take their orders. Skinner's eyes flicked rapidly over the menu, even though he knew it by heart, then looked up at the server. "Just the usual, Sylvia. Oh, and what the hell. Extra mayo this time, okay?" The woman nodded and scribbled on her pad, then took Scully's order before retreating towards the kitchen. 

Skinner looked back at the agent sitting across from him. "So, Agent Scully," he said. "To what do I owe the honor of this surprise luncheon invitation?" 

She smiled again, but there was a hint of unease in her features. "Just lucky I guess." She dropped her eyes and gnawed on her lower lip for a moment, and Skinner waited for her to continue. Finally, she looked back up at him. "Actually, I just wanted a chance to say thanks again. For last Thursday." 

Skinner nodded slowly. "No need to thank me, Agent Scully. I only did what was necessary." He thought back to that night four days ago. The phone call in the middle of the night, and the soft, wispy voice on the other end of the line: "It's happening again." He'd known in an instant who was calling, and why, and he'd beaten all speed records getting to her apartment. Then breaking into her apartment, and the long, agonizing process of grounding her, of coaxing her back to the world from the dark place she'd retreated into, of bringing her back to the light. 

He wondered how much of it she remembered. He knew that when his own ghosts came to call he seldom remembered much about their visit the next morning -- yet he always knew they had been there, because he could still smell the jungle and the cordite and the blood. The smells seemed to permeate his sheets on those morning, to fill his nostrils, never leaving him alone. Sharon had sometimes been able to make it go away, or at least get it to maintain some distance. But Sharon was gone. 

He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it, and looked back again at Scully. He wasn't here to mope about his own problems, he reminded himself. He was here to listen to whatever she wanted to talk to him about. 

She seemed to have been waiting for his thought processes, and now that she knew she had his attention again, she said, "Still, I am grateful. I do appreciate it. And I appreciate that you gave me the day off on Friday. At first I wasn't sure it was a good idea, but it really helped a lot." 

Skinner nodded again. "It seemed the right thing to do. We all need the occasional mental health day, Agent Scully." 

She looked at him for a moment, as if trying to make up her mind about something. Then: "Could we just be...Dana and Walter for a few minutes?" 

Skinner felt his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She had never asked for this before. They had been Dana and Walter during her flashbacks, but they had always returned to being Agent Scully and Assistant Director Skinner as soon as the crisis had receded. She had seemed to need the distance, and truth be told Skinner was more comfortable with the professional boundaries firmly in place, as well. Still, if she was asking for him to be a friend for a few minutes, he could not refuse. Both she and her partner had long since gotten past his guard, and he felt towards them almost the way he imagined he would feel towards his children, if only he had any. 

He realized that she was waiting for an answer, and so he nodded quickly. "Of course, Dana." He hesitated, then added, "I take it something is still bothering you?" She nodded, but didn't say anything. "Is it about...last Thursday? Is it about Emerson?" 

She shook her head slowly. "I don't think so. Or at least, not exactly. I'm just...all tangled up inside. I'm confused; I don't know what I feel, or what I think." 

"That's perfectly understandable," Skinner pointed out. "You had a pretty bad episode, and it's only natural that you might be suffering from emotional overload." 

The waitress chose that moment to arrive with their food, and Skinner and Scully sat in silence while she distributed the plates. Skinner was afraid that Sylvia might want to chat for a moment, since he and Scully were both regulars, but fortunately the diner was too busy, and the waitress quickly turned and rushed away again. 

Skinner watched as Scully sat for a moment, looking at the salad she'd ordered. One of the croutons had fallen off the plate onto the table, and she picked it up and ate it. Finally, she looked back up at him. 

"I don't think that's it," she said. "It doesn't feel right." She shook her head, and repeated, "I'm confused." 

Skinner thought about that for a moment. He knew what it was like to be emotionally shellshocked, and he knew how hard it was to recognize that feeling within one's own self. At the same time, Dana Scully was an alert and intelligent woman, and if after due deliberation and self-examination she didn't think that was what was going on, then maybe she was right. 

Maybe. 

Again the silence had grown uncomfortably long. "So what is it that's confusing you?" he asked. An idea popped into his head, and before he had time to second-guess himself, he added, "Has Mulder been treating you okay?" 

She smiled and nodded. "He's been very sweet. He hasn't asked me a single question. He's been there when I wanted him to be, and he left me alone when I wanted to be alone." Her smile broadened, and she laughed. "He even took me to the zoo." 

"To the zoo?" 

She nodded again, and now her entire face lit up, as if the sun were shining out of her eyes. "On Friday afternoon. He insisted that we had to go see the elephants. He had this crazy theory that the elephants at the National Zoo are actually the advance guard for invading aliens from Arcturus." 

Skinner felt his lips twitch. "You're kidding!" 

"No, really! He spun this whole convoluted story out, and I just couldn't stop laughing, it was so silly. He kept offering them sunflower seeds, because he said that if they were earthly creatures they would eat the seeds, but if they didn't eat them, it was proof that their body chemistry was incompatible with life on earth." 

"So did they eat the seeds?" 

"Most of them did," she said. "But the oldest bull refused to come near him, and so Mulder decided that THAT elephant must be the alien, and was just using the others as part of his disguise, to blend into human society." 

Skinner shook his head and chuckled. "Sounds like an X-File to me, Dana." 

She giggled, and Skinner raised his eyebrows again. Dana Scully had giggled? "That's what I told him," she said. "I told him that if he really wanted to investigate this, we had to do it right." 

Skinner was beginning to get just a glimmer of where this conversation might be heading. "What did he say?" 

She shrugged, but mischief still danced in her eyes. "He changed the subject. I don't think he wanted to talk about work at all; we were supposed to be having fun. But then a few minutes later he started talking about the elephants again, and the next thing I knew we were at an ice cream parlor and he was forcing me to eat a banana split." 

"A banana split?" He well knew her addiction to ice cream. "You must have hated that." 

"Yeah," she grinned. "It was a real sacrifice. Anyway, Mulder said it had to be a banana split, because we had to do our part to reduce the world's supply of bananas, so that the elephant invaders wouldn't think the earth was an attractive place to live." Her lips twitched. "He said they also like whipped cream, so we each had to have double portions of that, too." 

Skinner nodded, and couldn't help smiling at the image she evoked of Special Agent Fox Mulder at play. That was something he didn't see very often. "So then what happened?" he asked, when she didn't seem inclined to continue. 

Scully shrugged. "Not much. He took me home. I made some coffee, and then he said he had some errands to do and left. I spent the rest of the evening by myself. Watched some TV. Read a book. Went to bed." 

Skinner nodded again, and decided to probe a little further. "So what did you do on Saturday?" 

"Saturday?" She looked at him, puzzled. "Nothing much, really. I slept in; I was still pretty tired from...from Thursday night. My mom stopped by, and we had lunch together." 

She started to smile again, and her eyes glinted. "In the afternoon I surfed the Internet, and did some research on elephants. I wound up emailing Mulder a long, turgid report, proper Bureau format and everything, debunking the idea that elephants could be of extraterrestrial origin." She laughed. "It wasn't half an hour before he called me, and started telling me that of COURSE most elephants are terrestrial; after all, most of the ones at the zoo ate his sunflower seeds. But he insisted that there are infiltrators in every herd, and that the real service to humanity is to identify the invaders. And they ARE gray, after all!" 

Again she stopped speaking, and suddenly she looked sad. After a moment, Skinner said, very softly, "Then what happened?" 

She shrugged unhappily. "Nothing. I asked him if he wanted to rent a movie and order pizza, but he said he was busy. I guess he must have had a date...or something." 

"Or something," Skinner agreed carefully. By now he was certain he knew what was bothering her, but he wasn't sure that SHE knew, and he didn't want to say anything that might upset her. After another moment's silence, he said, "Anything else happen on Saturday?" 

"No. Not really." She looked up at him. "Why are you asking me all these questions?" 

Skinner shrugged. "I don't know. Just trying to help you figure out what's bothering you. You said it wasn't Emerson, so I thought maybe it was something that happened over the weekend." He suddenly realized that neither of them had touched their food, and he picked up his sandwich and took a bite. "Eat your salad," he said after he'd chewed and swallowed. "Then tell me what happened on Sunday." 

The first hint of a smile began to tug at the corners of Scully's mouth again. "You're not going to believe this," she said, and then the smile broke through and the sun came out again. "Mulder showed up at my apartment at 5:30 in the morning. No phone call, no warning, nothing. Just there he was. I was still half asleep, and he's going, 'Hurry, Scully, hurry! We can't let them get away!'" She shook her head and laughed. "I thought there must be a case we had to investigate, but once he gets me into his car he tells me that he's found the secret hideout for the Arcturan Elephant Expeditionary Force." 

Skinner chuckled. "Once he gets hold of something he really doesn't like to let it go," he commented. 

"No, he doesn't," she agreed, still smiling. "He's very intense. Anyway, we drove and drove, and finally we pulled into a little town over on the Eastern Shore, name of Unionville. And right there in the town square there was a giant stone elephant, at least twenty feet high. Mulder parked the car and dragged me out of my seat, and said this was the Arcturan elephants' leader, and we had to interrogate him." She chuckled. "He was just crazy! First he read it its rights. Then he shined his flashlight in its eyes, and he threatened to pistol whip it. He even had me playing tough cop/nice cop with him." She gripped the edge of the table and started laughing. "I....I told him ....I told him to be nice to the poor thing....because they have such....thin skins!" And she doubled over with laughter, still clutching at the table. 

Skinner waited for her to run down. Then, as she was wiping her eyes, her mouth still twitching slightly, he said, "Sounds like you had a good time." 

"Oh, yes," she replied, still smiling. "The best time I've had in...oh, I don't know. Ages." 

"So what else happened on Sunday?" 

She shrugged again, but there was still a twinkle in her eyes. "Oh, I don't know. We drove around, just playing tourist, looking for more elephants. It turns out Mulder had met this guy, years and years ago when he was still with the VCU, who used to travel in elephants. 

"Travel in elephants?" Skinner repeated. 

She nodded. "Yeah, I was puzzled, too. But it turns out this man had been a traveling salesman, and after he retired he and his wife just kited around the country, poking around and seeing what there was to see. And to give themselves an excuse, they pretended that they were peddling elephants, and had to scout the territory." She smiled again. "It sounded like a lot of fun, the way Mulder described it. 

"But anyway, the point of this is that this elephant salesman had drafted Mulder as his local agent, if you can believe it, and Mulder took it seriously enough that he has an entire file, three inches thick, on elephants he's seen, both real and otherwise. And that's how he knew about the stone elephant in Unionville." 

Skinner nodded, chuckling. "Okay, so after you finished your elephant hunt, then what happened?" 

Scully smiled. "Eventually we got back to DC, and he took me to dinner at my favorite restaurant. He even danced with me a couple of times. It was really nice." 

"And then?" 

She shrugged again, and the smile went away like throwing a switch. "He dropped me off at my apartment and I went to bed." 

Skinner nodded, and leaned back in his seat. "All right, Dana," he said. "I think we have all the pieces of evidence we need to unravel this particular mystery." 

She raised her eyebrows at him. "We do?" 

"We do," he confirmed. "At least, I'm pretty sure we do." 

"I guess I must have missed something." It wasn't quite a question. 

"Possibly," Skinner admitted. Then he sat quietly, looking at her. 

After a few moments of this she started to look a little uneasy. Finally, she stirred in her seat. "I guess I don't get it. What is it you think you've figured out?" 

Skinner hesitated, then said, "At the risk of sounding like Doctor Ruth, I think it would be more credible to you if it came from your own mouth." He paused for a moment. "But I can give you a hint, if you like." 

She stared at him for a few seconds, and he could see the anxiety growing stronger in her eyes. Finally: "Please." 

Skinner hesitated again for a moment, trying to decide how to say it without giving away so much that she would be able to dig in her heels and pretend that it was all coming from outside of her. "Think back, Dana. Think back about what we've just been talking about. Think about how you spent your weekend, and all the things you did. Think about how you felt while you were doing those things. What made you happy. What made you sad." He paused, then added, "You may have to be willing to open yourself to things you don't normally think about very much. Don't be afraid to go into strange territory; I'm right here, and I won't let you get lost." Then he sat back and waited again. 

He knew exactly when she got it, because her eyes widened slightly, and then she hurriedly dropped her gaze from his to look at the uneaten salad sitting in front of her. Still Skinner waited, knowing that she would talk to him again when she was ready. 

It was a long wait. Five minutes passed. Ten. At one point Skinner noticed Sylvia approaching with the check, and he shook his head silently and raised a finger to his lips. Sylvia looked at him for a moment, glanced at Scully, and then back at Skinner again. Finally she nodded and walked away. 

At last, her head still bowed, Scully spoke. "You think I'm in love with him." Pause. "And you're right." Hesitantly, she raised her eyes to look at him, and Skinner did his very best to look friendly and open, but neutral. This was Scully's voyage of discovery, and much as he wanted to help her, she would have to do the work herself. 

"That's certainly what it looks like, at least to an outsider," he said carefully. "Of course, only you can know what's truly in your heart." 

She seemed to consider that for a minute. Then, bitterly: "That shows how much you know about it!" And she looked down at her plate again. Again silence descended on them. Neither one moved. Finally, Scully looked back up at him. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "You didn't deserve that." She licked her lips, then shook her head violently, as if trying to clear it. "But even if you're right, what good does it do me? The whole thing is impossible." 

"Why is it impossible, Dana?" 

"Well....you know. The Bureau." 

"What about the Bureau?" 

"They'd split us up." She looked at him accusingly. "YOU'D split us up." 

Skinner considered that one for a moment. Apparently she wanted to deal with the straw men, first, and that was fine with him. The other objections would be harder. "I can't promise you that wouldn't happen, Dana," he said quietly. "We both know the Bureau's policy on these matters, and it is not encouraging. But we also both know that these situations are handled on a case by case basis, and that in the past exceptions have been made, when circumstances seemed to warrant. it." 

She started to speak, but he held up his hand to forestall her. "But that's really just a side issue, isn't it? Because the other thing we both know, as sure as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow, is that you WILL be split up, sooner or later." 

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him again. "What do you mean? Is someone --" 

"No," he said, shaking his head firmly. "I know of no plans to terminate your partnership. No one has spoken to me about it, and I have no reason to suspect that anyone is thinking about it. But be realistic, Dana. It's a business partnership, and such relationships are by their very nature temporary. You two have had five years together, and that's actually a pretty long time by the usual standards. If you stop and think about it, you have to realize that someday it will end. If not tomorrow, then next week, or next month, or next year. One or both of you will be offered a transfer or a promotion, and you won't be able to turn it down. And that will be the end of it." 

She seemed to be thinking about it, and it was evident that the idea had occurred to her before. It was also evident that she wasn't happy about it. Finally, she said, "So what's your point?" 

"My point is that whether you choose to act on your feelings for Mulder or not, your professional relationship will not last forever. All you can hope to accomplish by holding this in is to prolong it a little while." 

"That's not the worst thing in the world," she muttered. 

"No, it's not," he agreed. "A good partner is hard to find, and it makes a lot of sense to do what you can to hold on to him as long as possible." Before she could latch onto that and incorporate it into her defense, he hastened on, "But that applies to the other sort of partnership as well. And there are no artificial limits on how long THAT can last." 

She sat silently again for a few minutes, and seemed to be considering it. Then: "Of course, that all assumes that he feels the same way I do." 

Another softball. Skinner almost smiled; she really must want this, or she wouldn't be making it so easy for him to help her talk herself into it. "That's true. It takes two to tango." 

Her lips quirked slightly, but then the pensive look returned. "Does he --" She stopped, and then shook her head. "Sorry. That's not a fair question." 

Skinner shrugged. "I don't know that it's an unfair question," he replied. "But I think you're asking the wrong person. And while I cannot promise you what he would say, anymore than I can promise you how the Bureau would react, I can tell you that it is my opinion, based on observing the two of you together, that you would not be disappointed in his answer. That's just a guess, but it's an educated guess." 

She nodded again, and looked down at her salad again. Idly, she picked up her fork and pushed the lettuce around on her plate for a moment, and as the silence stretched on and her shoulders hunched, Skinner realized that the real objection was finally about to emerge. Finally, speaking in tones so low that he could barely hear her, she said, "What if I...can't?" 

"Can't what, Dana," he asked, very softly. He suspected he knew what she was getting at, but he also suspected that this was another thing she had better not hear coming from the outside. 

"What if I can't....can't....be close to him?" 

"Close to him in what way?" 

"You know...close." She put down her fork waved her hands in carefully controlled frustration, and tears welled up in her eyes, and when she spoke again her voice was shaky. "What if...what if...HE ruined me?" 

He knew he had to help her a little bit. "You mean Emerson?" She nodded, but didn't speak. "He didn't ruin you, Dana. He hurt you terribly, he violated something very personal and private. But he didn't ruin you." He wished she would look up from her plate, so she could see the sincerity he was trying to project, but he didn't dare touch her. "Why do you think he ruined you?" 

"Because...because he did. He made me..." Her voice trailed off, then she seemed to gather courage, but even with that she was only able to speak in a whisper. "He made me ugly." 

Skinner sat perfectly still while her words echoed and reechoed in his skull. Ugly? Dana Scully thought she was ugly? He knew instinctively that she wasn't speaking of mere physical attractiveness -- although that was no doubt part of it. But there was a spiritual component to the statement, as well, and it was almost certainly the more serious of the two problems. It had never occurred to him that she might have such a poor self-image, although now that he thought back to his long-ago Academy coursework on the psychology of rape victims he realized that it should have. And some of the things that had happened to him in Vietnam... 

He forced his attention back to the woman sitting across from him, and realized that every second he let slide by was giving more fuel to her self-doubts. He didn't know what he was going to say, but he had to say something. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, and just let the words come tumbling out. "Dana, you're not ugly. You're beautiful." 

As soon as he said it, he realized it was a mistake, but the words were already out there, hanging almost visibly in the air between them, and he saw her walls go up and her face shut down, and almost before he realized what was happening, she was reaching for her purse. 

"Thank you for having lunch with me, sir," she said, pulling a ten from her wallet and slapping it down on the table. "This should cover the check. I have to get back to work." And she rose from the table and headed for the door. 

And he reached out and grabbed her wrist. 

They both froze, and Skinner wondered for an agonizing pair of seconds if he hadn't just made things even worse. Her back was to him, and he couldn't see her face, but her body language exuded tension. 

And then she started crying. 

It started with a twitch of her shoulders, and then another, and in another instant her entire body was shaking. Skinner let go of her wrist, and rose quietly from the table, stepping around in front of her, being careful not to touch her at all. Her head was bowed, eyes squinched tightly shut, and tears were streaming down her face. And Skinner simply stood in front of her, waiting. 

Finally, she ran down, and after another couple of minutes she opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Sorry," she said. 

"No, Dana," he replied. "I'm the one who should be sorry. That didn't come out at all the way I intended for it to." He gestured to the booth. "Can we sit down again?" She nodded and they resumed their seats, but not without a little bit of awkwardness. 

"First of all," Skinner said, "let me apologize for that dumbass remark. It was stupid and thoughtless." 

She shook her head. "No. No, you didn't do anything wrong. You were trying to help. It's not your fault I'm such a fuckup." 

He sighed. "Yes, Dana, I was trying to help, but I wasn't doing a very good job of it. Let me try again, okay?" She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. Here it is. What I was trying to say was that physically you are a very attractive woman." She started to cloud up again, but he shook his head. "Please, hear me out. I know it isn't easy for you to hear things like this, but I have to say them, and try to make you understand. Please?" 

The hesitation was longer this time, and when she nodded it seemed almost grudging. "Okay," he said again. "As I said, you are physically very attractive. Now, I know that I'm not the person you need to hear telling you this, but I think you should get used to hearing it, because if you do open up to Mulder, and if he does respond to you the way I suspect he will, you're going to be hearing it a lot." 

He fell silent, and let her chew on that one for a moment. Finally, she nodded again. "Now the other thing you should know is that as a person you have a lot of very attractive qualities." 

She looked at him warily. "Such as?" 

"Honesty. Loyalty. Courage. Tough-mindedness. And those are just the things that come to the fore in your professional life. I'm sure that anyone who spent much time with you on a personal level could add to the list. Mulder, for example." 

She made a face. "Are you saying I should just ask him? Out of the blue?" 

"Why not?" He shook his head again. "Look, Dana, we both know that this is the real underlying objection you have to the idea of being in love with Mulder. It isn't the Bureau, and it isn't fear of rejection; you're a professional, and you're an adult, and you have the resources to cope with either of those eventualities. It's the fear of yourself that's upsetting you. The fear that you aren't worthy, and don't measure up, or that you won't be able to make good on whatever it is you imagine a romanctic relationship ought to be like." 

"I've been in love before," she said. "I dealt with it okay." 

"Did you?" 

Skinner sat quietly while she thought about that for a moment. Finally, she shook her head. "Maybe not." 

Skinner waited for moment to see if she was going to add anything, then nodded and went on. "Now you aren't going to be able to solve these problems overnight, and certainly not just on the basis of one conversation over lunch." He pulled out his wallet and started searching for the card. He thought he still had it, but it had been several years, and...there it was! He extracted a worn, crumpled business card and laid in on the table in front of her. 

She looked down at it, but didn't touch it. "What is it?" 

"It's the business card for a psychologist who specializes in relationship counseling. Sharon tried to persuade me to go with her to see him, but I refused. Biggest mistake I ever made." That hurt to say, but it was the truth. Too bad he hadn't figured it out sooner. 

Scully was quiet for a minute, then she picked up the card and looked at it, concentrating as if she were trying to decipher some sort of a code. "You're saying Mulder and I..." Her voice trailed off. 

Skinner nodded. "That's what I'm saying. You've got some pretty serious problems, and a lot of them are tied in with relationships -- or with your idea of relationships. Maybe this guy can help. And if he can't, maybe you can find someone else who can." 

She continued looking at the card for another pair of minutes. Finally, she looked up at Skinner. "Do you mind if I keep this?" 

"Not at all." His lips quirked, and he tried to make a joke out of the sudden emptiness he felt inside. "I certainly have no use for it." 

"Thank you." She looked at the card for a moment longer, then slipped it into her jacket pocket. Then she took it out again and put it into her purse instead. "I don't want to put it through the laundry by mistake," she said. 

"Very sensible." 

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, while Skinner finished his sandwich and Scully picked at her salad. Finally, she looked up at him. "I guess I really should be going," she said, and smiled slightly. "It isn't going to get any easier if I keep putting it off." 

Skinner nodded. "I think that's wise." 

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Another one of my...my attractive qualities?" 

He smiled. "Ask Mulder. He'll tell you." 

She smiled back, but there was still anxiety in her eyes. "I think maybe I will." And she briefly laid a hand on his shoulder, then turned and walked away. 

# # # 

Skinner sighed and initialed off on the memo and placed it in his out box, then glanced at his watch. He ought to be on his way home by now, but there was so much damned paperwork, and if he left it now it would still be waiting for him in the morning. The meeting with Agent Scully had caused him to fall behind, and the incessant ringing of the phone and people wanting "just a few minutes of your time so I can run something by you" hadn't helped matters any. 

Not that he blamed Scully for it; she'd needed his time more than most of those other bozos. 

The intercom buzzed, and he glared at it before punching the talk button. "Kimberly? Why haven't you gone home? It's after five." 

Her answering chuckle floated from the speaker. "Just a few more things to finish up, sir, and then I'll be leaving. In the meantime, Agents Mulder and Scully are hear to see you." 

Skinner raised his eyebrows. "Send them in." 

A few seconds later the door swung open and the two agents of the X-Files division walked into the room. Skinner quickly suppressed a smile as he saw that Scully was holding onto Mulder's hand as if she was afraid he might float away. Her features were a mix of fear, happiness and determination, while Mulder looked bemused but happy. 

They looked very natural together. 

After it became clear that neither of them was inclined to speak, Skinner took the initiative, using his best Assistant Director voice. "Agents? Is there something you wanted to see me about?" 

To his surprise, it was Scully who spoke. "Yes, sir. We're sorry to be disturbing you; we realize that you're probably anxious to get home. But something has happened that we felt you should know about." She glanced quickly at Mulder, who nodded slightly, the barest hint of a smile on his face. "Something that may affect our....professional....relationship." Then she stopped. 

Skinner looked at them for a moment, waiting to see if one of them was going to come right out and say it. Finally he decided to hell with it; he'd been hard enough on Scully for one day, and while normally he enjoyed baiting Mulder, he suspected that this was not a good time or subject in which to indulge himself. 

He nodded sharply. "Very well, Agents. I think I saw this one coming." He glanced at the calendar on his desk. "Please submit a memorandum through me to the OPR explaining the changed circumstances, and including your recommendations as to what should be done about the situation. That should get the ball rolling; I'll take it from there. I'd like your report on my desk by close of business on Friday." He looked back up at them. "Is there anything else?" 

"No sir," Scully replied. "Except...thank you." 

And Mulder nodded.   
  


Fini 


End file.
